Why US politics feels like it’s all about Israel — and what that does and doesn’t mean for Jews

Israel has become the perfect wedge issue for progressive Democrats. That’s left many US Jews in an uncomfortable spot, regardless of how they feel about the Jewish state’s actions

One of the most surprising things about the implosion of Graham Platner’s campaign for US Senate, given the current state of American politics, is that it had nothing to do with Israel.

Platner, the anti-Israel progressive Democrat running an insurgent campaign to unseat Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, announced he was dropping out on Wednesday in the face of a credible rape allegation, which followed reports of his toxic behavior toward women as well as social media posts downplaying sexual assault. He also had been dogged by controversy over a Nazi tattoo he sported on his chest for years, which some critics linked to his harsh criticism of Israel.

In the end, a different matter did him in. But somehow, Israel still managed to make an appearance in the discourse over Platner’s downfall — starting in his own announcement that he was suspending his campaign.

“All we were asking for was healthcare, was to end the genocide, to use our taxpayer dollars at home to uplift our communities instead of waging war overseas,” he said more than nine minutes into the 11-minute video. “We were asking for a fairer system.”

In other words, the number-two issue in Platner’s final, drawn-out campaign statement that he felt the need to reference was the accusation that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. He did not admit to the rape allegation, nor apologize to his accuser. He did criticize Israel.

He was not the only one. Far-right former GOP representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote — and then apparently deleted — a social media post suggesting the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC was behind the Platner rape accusation. That conspiracy theory was so widespread that the Forward ran a piece headlined, “AIPAC isn’t to blame for the Graham Platner scandal — no matter what social media trolls say.”

Liberal pundit Joy Reid said, of Platner’s potential replacement, that if the Democratic Party “shoves an AIPAC candidate down your throat, you have my permission to not vote for them”

And then there are the many races where Israel has actually taken the spotlight. It was arguably the main issue in a series of far-left victories in congressional primaries in New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Denver. It’s been a hot-button topic in the San Francisco Bay Area. And it was smack in the middle of a bitter Democratic Senate primary in Michigan. More than 70 percent of US adults said the issue of Israel was very or somewhat important to them, according to an AP poll.

Why is it that progressive candidates are seizing on Israel in races across the country, and winning? Why does it feel like Israel is the main issue in American politics, no matter where you turn? And what does that mean for American Jews?

An ‘incredibly salient’ wedge issue

It’s not just that the US recently fought a war alongside Israel, or has long been its closest ally. One answer, proffered by progressive commentators and operatives, is that support for Israel and AIPAC sits at the nexus of a set of debates dividing the Democratic Party: not just over Israel and the Palestinians but over the role of big money in politics, war in the Middle East, and the success — or lack thereof — of the Democratic leadership, which has historically supported Israel.

In other words, Israel and AIPAC are incredibly effective wedge issues for insurgent progressives looking to unseat establishment Democrats.

“You have a situation in which you have stacked these different things atop each other, like money and politics, the establishment, the failed status quo, the pro-Israel lobby,” the liberal commentator Chris Hughes said in a recent New York Times podcast interview. “So being the populist insurgent against the status quo, your criticism of Israel, your criticism of the war on Gaza, your views on that put you across these incredibly salient divides.”

To critics of that movement, the tendency to use Israel as a stand-in for all the country’s problems smacks of antisemitism. After all, to take one example, crypto lobbies have spent $189 million so far on 2026 campaigns, more than AIPAC’s two PACs, according to estimates. And yet, somehow, the issue of crypto is not animating Democratic primaries across the country.

For some Jews, it is not a bridge too far to say that politicians’ harsh criticism of Israel indicates not just hostility to the Jewish state, but to Jews themselves. But one issue with that claim is that, following three years of fighting in Gaza, a growing number of American Jews are criticizing Israel using the same harsh language.

Opposing Israeli actions, but not Israelis

To take one example, among American Jews, accusing Israel of genocide was once considered antisemitic and fringe. Now, whether or not the claim is antisemitic, it’s not fringe anymore.

The recent AP poll found that 30% of American Jews believe Israel committed genocide, statistically equivalent to the 31% of Americans overall who say the same. About half of Jewish Democrats say the US is too supportive of Israel, not much lower than the 58% of Democrats overall who agree.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is significantly less popular among American Jews than he is among all US adults. In fact, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the highest-profile anti-Israel politician in the country, is more popular among American Jews than the leader of the Jewish state: Mamdani’s favorability among Jews stands at 44%, as opposed to around 33% for Netanyahu.

Of course, it’s possible to read those poll numbers not as an endorsement of Mamdani, but as an indictment of Netanyahu, who has pushed away many American Jewish groups and antagonized the Democratic politicians that most Jews vote for.

Nor should American Jews’ mounting criticism of Israel be seen as a desire to do away with the country altogether. A ream of survey data shows the opposite.

A recent poll of American Jews found that, while only 28% had a favorable view of AIPAC, 71% had a favorable view of Israel, far above Americans as a whole. Sixty-three percent of US Jews described themselves as critical of some, or many, of the Israeli government’s policies, but still “generally pro-Israel.” A recent Pew poll found that 83% of American Jews felt favorably toward the Israeli people.

That is where many American Jews depart from the staunchest critics of Israel on the left, some of whom have attained, or are on the verge of, significant political power.

Reckoning with exclusion in real time

It’s true that a sizeable number of Jews agree with progressive condemnations of Israel. It’s also true that some of those Jews are finding themselves reckoning in real time with the antisemitism that often accompanies that criticism.

Recent examples abound. Scott Wiener, in the middle of a campaign for US Congress in California, publicly changed his position on whether Israel committed genocide — he now endorses the charge — but still found himself hounded out of an LGBTQ event and berated at a restaurant due to his past support for Israel. Brad Lander, another Jewish progressive congressional candidate who accuses Israel of genocide, had to distance himself from a New York cafe that banned his Jewish opponent for being pro-Israel.

And when Mandani accused AIPAC of being “monsters” that move “millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal, to preserve their power so that they can turn us against one another,” multiple Jewish allies of his put out statements condemning the rhetoric — even though they too oppose AIPAC’s positions.

“A lot of progressive Jews have felt like we’ve been pushed out of progressive spaces,” Wiener told CNN recently. “And that’s not just me: I hear that all the time, very lefty Jews who are put to a litmus test that you have to call for Israel’s destruction, or you are not actually LGBTQ and you’re not welcome here.”

If calling for Israel’s destruction makes even progressive Jews uncomfortable, that has not stopped some politicians. Mamdani has made clear that he does not believe Israel should be a Jewish state. Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Mamdani endorsee who just won a Democratic congressional primary in New York City, says the same.

So does Abdul El-Sayed, who’s running a progressive campaign in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary against a pro-Israel centrist. He’s derided his opponent as a “suit with a large AIPAC bank account.”

Asked about Israel, he told CNN, “Every definition of a Jewish state ends up in some articulation of illiberal values, every single one.” He also suggested that if a politician is “a Democrat and you believe in human rights,” the only reason they could support Israel is money. Lander endorsed him this week.

And while much of this discourse is found in Democratic circles, it is not confined to them. Conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey, in an interview with US Vice President JD Vance, lamented what she called an “Israel Derangement Syndrome,” which she described as “the obsession that some people have — I would say on the right — with blaming all of their problems on Israel… I’m not saying all of those people hate every Jewish person, but it seems to get there really fast.”

El-Sayed might not win his primary. Platner is already out. But in an era when both parties are riven by internal conflicts, anti-Israel politics are not going away. And they are drawing a meaningful chunk of Jewish voters who feel alienated from the bellicose actions of the Jewish state.

The pressing question for American Jews is whether they will be alienated in the country where they live — no matter how they vote.